The Lunar Dust Analysis Package or L-DAP comprises a number of instruments intended to measure the microscopic properties of lunar dust including: The size distribution of the lunar dust The structure of the dust grains ...

The INSPIRE project is dedicated to the study of physical processes and their effects in ionosphere which could be determined as earthquake precursors together with detailed description of the methodology of ionospheric pre- seismic anomalies definition.

The objective of the project was to define, design and validate data mining algorithms that enable advanced or autonomous medical monitoring and diagnostics for astronauts, exploiting standard medical data available from health and sanitary structures. S.A.T.E....

The main goals of the GARCA project are: (1) To develop a tool capable to simulate GNSS-R data products for various instrument implementations using state-of-the-art techniques, including GEROS phase-A candidates, up to Level-1 observables and Level-2...

Funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) through its General Studies Programme (GSP) ( www.esa.int/gsp ), this activity aimed to provide more insights on the possible space applications of micro- and nanoencapsulation (MNE) techniques and technologies. NASA performed some...

Previous research has already demonstrated that graphene field effect transistors can be operated at incredibly high bandwidths, demonstrating 25+GHz with a theoretical limit of up to 500GHz for visible photodetection. Ultrafast photodetection has also been demonstrated on the 10s of femtosecond...

In the first demonstrations, the detection of photons with graphene was based on the pn-junction generated by the graphene-metal contact. There the active detector area is a narrow line with length determined by the contact edge and as the absorption of photons incident to a...

ENSEM investigates potential use of energetic neutral atoms (ENA) for space weather monitoring. ENAs are produced everywhere in the solar system due to the interaction between space plasma and ambient particles (neutrals and other plasma populations). Due to the neutrality,...

The output of the activity should show the necessary engineering changes to an existing CubeSat deployer to meet AIM mission and system requirements and prepare an appropriate interface definition for accommodation on the AIM spacecraft including among others: ...

The Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) is part of the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA). The intention of AIDA is to send two spacecraft, AIM and Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART ) to the binary asteroid 65803 Didymos, to investigate the kinetic effects of...

Global plans for exploratory missions aim at extending the distances travelled by humans well beyond low Earth orbit and establishing permanent bases on the surface of Moon and Mars [1]. This will inevitably lead to increasing mission duration, radiation intensity, gravity...

In this report, we describe the advisory study for both the Asteroid Impact Monitoring (AIM) as a stand-alone European mission and for AIM with its second component, the US Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission under study at NASA by the John Hopkins University...

The increase of space debris means that active space debris removal becomes relevant. An active debris removal mission has a positive effect (or risk reduction) for all satellites in the same orbital band. This leads to a dilemma: each agency has an incentive to delay its...

Space debris mitigation requirements specific to propulsion systems are scrutinized and compliance of OHB reference propulsion architectures is assessed. The risk of generating debris due to a failure in a propulsion system is assessed with a focus on the specific risk of a...

The study was motivated by the need to get a better, quantitative, understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of SAR and multispectral image data, taking into account the spatial and temporal at which such data are generally available and the characteristics of...

This purpose of the study was to develop a high frequency radar to sound the first tens of metres of asteroid regolith and to achieve 3D tomography with metric resolution in order to  Determine its structure and layering ...

Generally speaking DIAMS has been an opportunity to secure the feasibility of the IOD in technical, programmatic and financial terms. More specifically DIAMS has allowed to define the end-to-end mission concept for this IOD, covering the design of various associated...

The objective of the study was twofold: i) to analyse the new dynamics of desertification in Southern African region (southern Mozambique, southern Zimbabwe and Northern South Africa) through main achievements of the DesertWatch-Extension; ii) to propose new methods for...

Water resources management has become a challenging problem worldwide, especially in developing countries. The lack of information on land cover monitoring has a huge impact on the water resources management, since it may hamper the collection, treatment and distribution of...

Latest articles

Quick access to space, high-speed data feed and a unique vantage point are the selling points of a new commercial venture on the International Space Station. Its name is Bartolomeo, and its versatile design allows for many mission types at competitive prices from next year.

Living near a star is risky business, and positioning a spacecraft near the Sun is a very good way to observe rapidly changing solar activity and deliver early warning of possibly harmful space weather. ESA is now looking at doing just that.

ESA’s first mission of the year was launched today: GomX-4B is the Agency’s most advanced technology-tester yet, featuring a hyperspectral camera and tiny thrusters to manoeuvre thousands of kilometres from its near-twin to try out their radio link.

Simple yet efficient: intensive jumping might be a panacea for strong bones, muscles and hearts. A European study has confirmed the benefits of making giant leaps not only for astronauts, but also for elderly and sedentary people.

Most-viewed articles

Quick access to space, high-speed data feed and a unique vantage point are the selling points of a new commercial venture on the International Space Station. Its name is Bartolomeo, and its versatile design allows for many mission types at competitive prices from next year.

Living near a star is risky business, and positioning a spacecraft near the Sun is a very good way to observe rapidly changing solar activity and deliver early warning of possibly harmful space weather. ESA is now looking at doing just that.

ESA’s first mission of the year was launched today: GomX-4B is the Agency’s most advanced technology-tester yet, featuring a hyperspectral camera and tiny thrusters to manoeuvre thousands of kilometres from its near-twin to try out their radio link.

Simple yet efficient: intensive jumping might be a panacea for strong bones, muscles and hearts. A European study has confirmed the benefits of making giant leaps not only for astronauts, but also for elderly and sedentary people.

From the 30th January to the 2nd of February 2018, 16 University students completed a week of learning how to manage a project and build experiments for the Spin Your Thesis! Drop Your Thesis! and Fly Your Thesis! programmes at ESEC, in Redu, Belgium.

In just four days, a group of university students managed to prepare the preliminary design of a small satellite. The secret to their success was using the Concurrent Engineering method to speedily but effectively perform design iterations on the different subsystems and systems.

ESA is organising its 9th Summer Teacher Workshop from 10 to 13 July 2018, as well as its 4th Autumn Teacher Workshop from 4to 7 October 2018. Both workshops will take place in the Netherlands and are dedicated to European primary and secondary school teachers.

The deadline to apply for both workshops is Wednesday21 March 09:00 CET.

ESA is thrilled to announce the location and organiser of the 2018 European CanSat launch campaign: the competition will be hosted by the Regional Fund for Science and Technology (FRCT) on the island of Santa Maria, Azores (Portugal), in collaboration with local partners.

The next Alpbach Summer School will be held from 17 to 26 July 2018, and will focus on “Sample return from small Solar System bodies“. University students and young graduates have until 31 March 2018 to apply.